


Brightly Burning

by Lissadiane



Series: Night Owl [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Blood Magic, Familiars, Gore, M/M, Magic, Self-Harm, Stiles is bad at feelings, Witch Stiles Stilinski, alpha pack, lots of blood, so is Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissadiane/pseuds/Lissadiane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It must be hard, Stiles decides, dealing with wolf instincts screaming ‘protect that fragile human boy’ all the time, especially when the human boy in question is a badass witch who can destroy things with a thought and a little push of magic. But he guesses he probably doesn’t help matters when he can’t even stay still when Derek tells him to stay still.</p>
<p>Not that Stiles has any regrets. He’s not going to change who he is just because he’s dating a super strong, super hot, super bossy, super protective asshole who happens to change into a wolf at will. Stiles likes being a spastic little shit who can’t stay still. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s one of the most charming things about him, which means Derek’s got to learn to deal.</p>
<p>A sequel to Night Owls Early Birds in which Stiles and Derek are terrible at relationships, Beacon Hills plays host to an unwelcome visitor, and Stiles learns that attention to detail is essential when dealing with runes, particularly the permanent kind, branded onto his tender flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brightly Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the sequel to Night Owls Early Birds that no one asked for! Well, a few people asked for. Timelines are a little adjusted, mainly because it's the summer after senior year and Alpha pack-related shenanigans are happening.
> 
> Warning for self-harm, though it's magic-induced, not psychological-induced, if that makes a difference. Also, gore. I thought it was less gory than Night Owls, but there were a few instances when Skoosiepants was reading it where she commented, "Whoa, gory." 
> 
> Thanks to Skoosiepants for not letting me give up on this and get distracted by something new and shiny.

The full moon is shining through the kitchen window and Stiles is sweaty and disgusting because he has been focusing so hard, for so long – practically half an hour – on getting this spell exactly right.

He can _feel_ Scott and everyone else out in the Preserve, howling and running with the light of the moon sparking in their veins, and that energy is echoing through his own blood. It’s making it hard to keep his fingers from shaking, but he has gotten better at focusing his energy and attention when he needs to – particularly when he is so excited about the results.

Finally, it’s done – the last tiny, perfect drop of his blood landing just where it is meant to in the intersection of the charcoal lines on the kitchen table, and the result is instantaneous – a rush of hot and cold beneath his fingernails, pooling in his palms.

This is about his thirtieth attempt at this particular spell, but the combination of intricate sketch work, bloodwork, and magical coaxing necessary had meant failure after failure. Luckily, he rarely blew anything up anymore, which was nice, so his failures had been more disappointment and less physical pain, so there was that.

This time, however, he can feel the magic light up like a circuit, with no blown fuses, which is perfect.

He looks up at Steve, excited, magic glittering like stars in his wide eyes. “Steve,” he says.

The owl raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look impressed.

“Please.”

Steve still doesn’t move.

And that’s the next issue with this particular spell. The animal subject needs to be _willing_. And he had been holding out hope that Steve would do it – would let Stiles temporarily borrow his body – but he really should have known better.

“We can run with the pack,” he says, a hint of pleading in his tone. “We can run with Scott, with – with –” Steve still seems unwilling. “We can run with _Derek_.”

Finally, slowly, Steve gets up out of his cat bed and shakes his feathers out, still reluctant, but at least he’s moving.

“Yeah?” Stiles asks, hopping to his feet. He’s dizzy with how intoxicating this spell is, just waiting in his fingertips.

Steve snorts and flies out the open window. 

For a few long moments, Stiles doesn’t know how to react. And then there is an excited scratching at the back door and he opens it and the neighbour’s new puppy tumbles inside.

He’s about the size of a loaf of bread, all puppy kisses, excitement, loose skin he’ll someday grow into, and clumsy paws. His tail never stops wagging and he hops around Stiles’ ankles, trying to nip his fingers and bark at the same time. A brown, spotty, adorable, clumsy mutt with hound dog ears.

“You stole the neighbour’s puppy?” Stiles gasps, and Steve perches on the deck railing and doesn’t seem entirely concerned with Stiles’ judgement.

But the puppy won’t be hurt… just borrowed. And sure, Stiles had kind of seen this going differently – with a bit more dignity perhaps – but this would work. That is, if the puppy was willing…

He knees beside the puppy and catches the wiggly creature in his hands, holding him up to his face and trying to catch his gaze.

The puppy is as slippery as a fish, and he darts forward, drags his tongue up Stiles’ face, and nearly wiggles away before Stiles gives up, rolls his eyes, and releases the magic, just a little. Just a trickle. Enough that the puppy can totally, completely shut him down if he wants to.

Slipping into the puppy’s mind is like dropping into a hurricane, only instead of wind and rain, there is a rush of thoughts, sensations, smells, all moving past his nose and his eyes and his ears and his fur so quickly, that the puppy barely has time to register them at all. It goes something like this:

_Hello hello what do you taste like – ooh turkey and candy and salt I love salt so excited so excited hurray hurray this is the best night the best hurray I need to run and I need to bite – bite – oh fingers fingers are delicious hello hello can we be friends this isn’t my home do I need to pee I think I might need to pee oh no oh no I need to – what. You aren’t puppy._

And then the rush of impressions is gone and the puppy is tense and still and staring into Stiles’ eyes, poised for fight or flight because even a puppy knows when something enters its mind that technically shouldn’t be there.

So Stiles lets a bit more magic drip into the puppy’s mind, showing the puppy his intention, what they could do if the puppy wants to.

And that’s all it takes, really. The puppy is throwing his head back and howling, a wavering, high pitched, pathetic little howl, because he has always, always known that he was meant to run with wolves and he is so totally, totally on board with this plan.

It’s overwhelming after that, like the world gets tipped upside down and stripped of colour. Stiles’ consciousness leaves his body and slips into the puppy’s. Scent replaces sight as the most vibrant sense, and everything seems to be vibrating. The puppy thoughts are still there, though softer, as the puppy welcomes Stiles into its mind, sharing his tiny body, and giving up control.

The first thing Stiles does as a puppy is walk face-first into a cupboard, and the puppy collapses in puppy giggles in the back of his mind.

By the time he gets out the back door and wiggles under the fence, Stiles only stumbles every third or fourth hop, and he barely falls at all by the time he makes the treeline, Steve lazily flying above, following him into the trees.

*

Finding the pack’s trail isn’t hard. Even if Stiles couldn’t feel them underneath his heartbeat, he can smell them. Their scent trails sparkle like stars on the pieces of rock and leaves that they’d touched.

He adds his little barks and yelps and howls to the sound they are making but they are so far away, he doubts they can hear him, and he doubts they’d care about a puppy barking along anyway.

He runs as fast as his stubby legs can carry him but he doesn’t think he’ll ever catch up to Scott and the others, and then he stumbles on a scent trail that smells sweeter, that seems buried deeper in the earth, and he freezes. He sniffs the trail curiously, trying to place it, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for him to clue in.

This is the boundary of the Hale land. This is the perimeter Derek is always running – that his sisters and his mother had run before him, and his grandparents and their grandparents and all the Hales of Beacon Hills.

He closes his eyes and lets the rest of the scents and sounds of the Preserve fall away, focussing on the one place behind his heart where his bond to Derek lays twisted up with Scott’s pack.

Derek still refuses to run with them, despite growing closer and closer the more Stiles forces them to hang out. So he won’t be with the others. But he’s probably be running this perimeter here, he always does and – there!

Stiles yips excitedly and takes off along the perimeter, tripping over falling logs, his own feet, and even, sometimes, his long ears.

It’s only a few minutes before he finds Derek, leaping out of a shrub with a little growl, clamping his tiny teeth around Derek’s wolfy throat.

It’s hilarious.

Until, of course, Derek growls _back_ and Stiles remembers he’s all of seven pounds soaking wet, with puppy eyes and puppy breath his only defense.

All Derek has to do is toss his head and Stiles goes flying, hitting the ground with a yelp, and then Derek has him by the throat and the puppy in the back of Stiles’ mind is freaking out, crying and whining and chanting, _pee pee pee_ , like peeing himself in terror is going to help this situation.

Stiles manages not to do it.

And then he realizes that Derek is being very, very gentle, his teeth not even pinching a little. His tail starts wagging about a mile a minute and Stiles doesn’t even know why it’s so easy to figure out his tail when he can barely figure out his legs, but expressing excitement by wiggling his whole body just makes sense.

Suddenly Derek is a man again, naked and pinning Stiles to the ground with one hand. “Idiot,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I could have killed you.”

Then he picks Stiles up, studies his wiggly, furry little body, and says, “You figured it out?”

Stiles barks and then licks the tip of Derek’s nose. His tail is still going, and if Derek doesn’t stop petting him that way, Stiles is going to pee himself with puppyish excitement. Neither one of them would ever survive the humiliation.

Then he hears Scott howling in the distance and Stiles throws his head back and tries to howl too, and Derek nearly chokes on his laughter, which is really a dick move. Stiles stares at him mournfully and Derek says, “You couldn’t catch up with him, could you?” And he sounds so freaking amused, it’s really not funny. Stiles nips his finger to tell him so.

“Fine,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. “Follow me.” And then he’s a wolf again, loping off into the trees towards Scott’s howl.

Stiles does his best to follow, but his ears are too long and he’s got too many legs and none of them are long _enough_ and he just can’t keep up.

Derek comes back, huffs a sigh, and carefully pick Stiles up by the scruff of his neck, and takes off at a run towards Scott and the pack.

The whole night is pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened to Stiles. 

*

Sometimes, Stiles forgets that he and Derek are dating – or whatever it is they’re doing now that they generally accept that they will sit closer to each other than before at pack gatherings, and sometimes kiss, occasionally with less clothes than they normally wore, though never with no clothes, despite Stiles’ best efforts. But it was almost as if they’d _always_ had that little bit extra between them, that different sort of intensity, and putting a label on it didn’t really _change_ it. It just means that now, when Stiles wants to kiss Derek’s stupid face, he can.

He’s still working on getting into Derek’s pants, though.

And he _does_ forget, sometimes, because it seems so impossible that this could be real life – that someone like Derek could want someone like Stiles. Derek always seems to spot those moments when Stiles hesitates or looks uncertain or feels awkward and isn’t sure where he fits anymore, because he always, always reaches out and tugs Stiles into the empty place beside him where Stiles is obviously meant to be, and that soothes away the awkwardness, for a moment or two.

Stiles is spectacularly adept at embracing his awkwardness, anyway.

So it’s good. In fact, nearly everything is good. It’s the middle of summer and things have been quiet since the witch-near-death incident a few months ago, not counting a brief run in with a small horde of goblin settlers who had wanted to move into the Preserve. Derek had dealt with that on his own (and mostly through diplomacy, surprisingly enough), since everyone else had been feverishly studying for finals.

And now, waking up face down in a puddle of drool on a floor that most definitely is not his bed, Stiles’ first thought is not, “Oh god, I’ve been kidnapped by rogue witches or left for dead in the forest again.” It’s something more along the lines of, “Aw, shit, I’ll be feeling this in my back and my knees for the rest of the week.”

“You up?” Derek asks, and Stiles groans.

He manages to turn his head, though, and sees that he’s on his kitchen floor and Derek is there, shirtless and making pancakes. Coffee smells ready, and the morning is looking better and better.

“Where’s the dog?” he croaks.

“Took it home,” Derek says. “Chocolate chips?”

“Always.” 

Stiles pushes himself up, groaning again, and when he’s on his feet, Derek kisses his cheek and says, “Shower. You have puppy breath.”

“Do we have plans today?” Stiles asks, stealing a handful of chocolate chips.

“Yes.” Derek smacks his hand with the spatula.

“Making out plans?” he asks hopefully.

Derek shrugs one shoulder but Stiles can see his cheeks growing a little pink. “If you play your cards right,” he says.

“Sex?” Stiles asks with a wink and a grin, trying to look as sexy as he can after spending a night face down on the kitchen floor.

“Nope.”

Stiles laughs as he makes his way towards the stairs. “Open to negotiation, I like it,” he says over his shoulder. “You know you can’t resist me.”

“I can’t,” Derek agrees dryly, like it’s a lie, but Stiles knows it isn’t. Mostly.

The problem isn’t that Derek doesn’t _want_ to. The problem is that Stiles’ dad agreed with Derek’s assessment that Stiles is too young for him. Stiles is still working on proving his maturity. It hasn’t been going well.

But he’s got the rest of the summer to sort it out and things are definitely looking up.

*

The spiral that appears on Derek’s front door is everyone’s first indication that things aren’t going to be quite as care-free for the rest of the summer.

“What is that?” Liam asks, sniffing the air, and Scott shakes his head.

“It’s painted in blood,” he says.

Stiles barely hears him. He’s squinting at the symbol, because it looks familiar, but slips through his grasp whenever he tries to remember what it means. He’s seen it before, in that book of Deaton’s, the one with the witch symbols and curses, but he’s never used it or needed it to work his own magic. He closes his eyes and chases the symbol through his memory and when he finds it, his eyes fly open and he gasps.

“It’s revenge,” he says. “A curse.” 

And then he tugs at the heartstring that leads to Derek to make sure he’s okay. A second later, Derek is pulling up in his Camaro, loaded up with groceries for pack movie night, and Stiles only relaxes a little bit when he sees that Derek is okay.

“Were you hurt?” he demands, jerking the car door open before Derek has a chance to cut the engine. “Were you followed? Are you okay?”

“Hey,” Derek says, frowning and reaching out to run a palm along Stiles’ shoulder to soothe him. It’s a wolfy, alpha action, and it doesn’t really work the same for Stiles, but he’s never minded when Derek’s wolf instincts make him forget that Stiles isn’t and can’t actually be pack. “I’m fine. What’s wrong?” 

And then he sees the pack standing still and staring at the door and sees the bloody swirl, still fresh and wet, dripping down the door he’d so carefully painted blue only months before. The whole thing looks like a twisted elementary school diagram of the human heart, all blue and red and labeled incorrectly.

Stiles tucks himself against Derek’s side because touch always settles Derek when he starts getting worried, almost the same way it settles Stiles.

“Revenge,” Derek says quietly. He’s already scanning the area, searching for threats.

“It’s used in a lot of curses,” Stiles tells him.

“Is it human blood?” Liam asks.

“You should be able to smell the difference,” Scott says, instinctively launching into alpha-teaching-beta mode. It’s how he deals with stress. “It’s animal. Musky. Can you smell it?”

Liam tries again, mumbling, “Deer?” and Stiles is already tuning them out.

“My wards,” he says, closing his eyes. “They’re faded. I didn’t even notice. They’re barely there at all, that’s how they got in—I’m so sorry, Derek, I didn’t even think.”

“It’s fine,” Derek says, distracted. He pulls away. “You should go home. Take the pack. It isn’t safe. I’ll run the perimeter, and –”

Stiles snorts but he doesn’t need to argue. Scott’s already launching into an impassioned speech about how the pack will be staying and helping identify the threat, and Stiles lets himself drift over to the centre point of the wards he’d cast months ago. They’ve found a balance that works for them – Scott as alpha, handling the wolf business, Stiles as coven leader, handling the witch business. Derek as… Derek. Whenever anyone needed to know anything a born wolf omega might know. It probably helped that none of the coven members had any idea what witch business involved, besides a lot of blood and some coal or charcoal.

The ward is barely pulsing at all. He really should have noticed, should have powered it up. Stiles sighs, wrestling with his own guilt as he pulls out the pocketknife Derek had got him months before. Derek keeps the blade super sharp and super clean for him, which Stiles appreciates because he isn’t sure how his magic would work against natural infections.

He slices open his palm with barely a flinch and lets a river of blood flow into the pre-existing ward. It lights up, a fiery glow only he can see, and then it fades back into the same happy, humming ward it should have been if he’d been maintaining it properly.

Then Derek takes his hand, scowling. “You shouldn’t have to do that,” he says, tugging the clean rag out of Stiles’ pocket and pressing it to the wound.

“Barely hurts,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes and casting the quick healing charm. “You going to run the perimeter?” Scott was already issuing orders to the other wolves.

Derek rolls his eyes. “Yes. You’ll be okay?”

“Totally safe. I’ll chill with Lydia and Kira, it’ll be great. Kira’s trying to teach us to knit. It’s the worst.”

Derek smiles reluctantly. “Stay inside. I’ll be back soon.”

And then there’s an awkward hesitation that makes Stiles smirk and Derek rolls his eyes again and kisses him quickly before transforming into a wolf and loping off into the trees. Stiles is pretty sure Derek was blushing before he changed, which is freaking adorable.

“Did you bring that scarf you’re working on?” Kira asks politely as they make their way into the house, carefully avoiding the blood on the door.

Lydia follows, pale and quiet, the way she usually is around blood. That is, when she’s not screaming.

*

They don’t find anything, and movie night is pretty much ruined. The pack eventually gives up and goes home, and Stiles sticks around, because he and Derek are Dating, which means he gets to do that now.

“Do you want help with that?”

“No,” Derek grunts. He seems pretty unnerved by the whole thing, and Stiles is pretty sure he can understand that. It must be tough, particularly for a werewolf – an omega werewolf, like Derek – to know that there’s a threat lurking, but not knowing where or what it is. Plus, he’s scrubbing dried blood off his front door.

Stiles hovers for a moment before rolling his eyes and going back into the house. He’s not sure what he and Derek are planning to do – probably some making out that won’t go far enough, before Stiles is shipped back to his own place to work off his sexual frustrations at home, which Stiles is totally okay with. Consent is sexy and until Derek consents, Stiles is perfectly content with the making out, which really helps to colour his sexual fantasies and make them more realistic.

Sure, he’s never actually had sex with Derek, but he knows what it’s like to _nearly_ have sex with him, which is much closer to actually having sex with him than Stiles had ever thought he’d get.

And he’s pretty good at jerking off. Lots of practice.

“Did you text your dad?” Derek asks, coming inside with the empty bucket, his mouth tense.

“Oh,” Stiles says, because, right. That’s a thing he promised to do, after the shenanigans and the near death with the witches. “No. Hold on.”

He sends a quick text to his dad, which says, _weird blood on Derek’s door, no idea why, don’t worry, totally safe, see you later,_ only with more typos and netspeak, obviously. And then his dad calls a second later, which totally violates the unwritten rule that a text should never result in a phone call.

So Stiles dutifully explains the weird symbol and the blood and the wolf pack’s fruitless search for clues in the woods, and then his dad sighs and says, “I’m working a double. Stay at Scott’s tonight.”

“No. A thousand times no,” Stiles says. “I can’t. He’s got Kira over, dad. You _know_ what that means.”

“I don’t want to know what that means,” his dad says tiredly. And then he hesitates. “You’re with Derek?”

“Yeah.”

Stiles’ dad _knows_. That had been one condition Derek had laid out before consenting to dating at all. His dad had to know, even if he didn’t approve, entirely, which he didn’t. But Derek had bravely faced the sheriff over dinner and swore on his mother’s grave that he would absolutely not pressure Stiles into sex, even though _Stiles is totally legal these days_ , and capable of making his own decisions, thank you.

“Can you stay there?”

Stiles glances at Derek, who’s listening, and Derek nods once. He’s doing the dishes, and it’s domestic and adorable, and Stiles has to look away because he wants to bite him. He’s not sure wolves, even omega wolves, take kindly to biting.

But maybe that’s something they should discuss. You know. While they also discuss other things that have been on Stiles’ mind lately, like spanking and light bondage and dog collars and, like. Knots. They could be a thing.

Stiles abruptly remembers he’s on the phone with his dad when his dad pointedly clears his throat, and he stammers, “Yeah, dad, he says sure.”

His dad sighs. “Fine. Do we need to talk about condoms again, because –”

“No,” Stiles yelps. “Never. Bye. Love you.”

He hangs up and glances at Derek again. Derek looks just as red as Stiles feels, so that’s something.

“I’ll make the guest room up for you,” he says, and Stiles’ shoulders slump.

“I’m totally capable of spending the night with a dude and keeping it to cuddling,” Stiles argues. “Scott and I used to do it all the time.”

Derek raises an eyebrow, and for one sweet, breathless moment, Stiles thinks it’s jealousy. Derek is totally about to go all possessive wolf on him, back him up against the wall, totally forget about all his weird rules about hands above the waist and pants done up at all times, and then they can finally solve this knotting mystery, once and for all, and –

“Fine,” Derek says, and then he walks away.

It’s progress, at least.

*

Stiles has good intentions. Stiles has the _best_ intentions.

He’s going to lie there, content and snuggled and warm and sleepy and –

But here’s the thing. Derek’s throat is _right there_ , and Stiles can’t help, like. Flicking his tongue a little, where he feels Derek’s pulse pounding. And Derek goes really still. And then Stiles _bites_ \-- a little – and Derek isn’t still at all anymore.

“You’re such a little shit,” Derek says, but he’s laughing like he can’t help it, even as he pins Stiles to the bed and kisses the breath right out of him.

Laughing kisses are Stiles’ favourite kisses.

*

There are hickeys all up and down his throat and shoulder even a few down his chest, where Derek had bruised him with his mouth and teeth. And Stiles isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to convince his hair to lie flat on his head again.

He hikes Derek’s pants up around his waist and tightens the belt that’s barely holding them up and smirks at himself. Downstairs, he hears the washer turn on.

Listen, Stiles is a teenaged boy. He can’t help it if Derek is the hottest person that’s ever happened, and he can’t be expected to spend the night next to all that hotness, and make out with that hotness in the middle of the night, and not come in his pants. He’s got nothing to be ashamed of.

And they’re both lucky that Stiles’ healing charm works on hickeys, because Stiles’ dad would _not_ approve.

*

A few nights later, on his way home from Derek’s, Stiles stops to get gas, after making Liam swear not to tell. Both Scott and Derek had decided that no one – especially not the fragile mostly-humans – were to go anywhere alone until the mystery of the revenge symbol on Derek’s door had been solved.

Stiles had argued for hours that he was never truly alone because of Steve, and that he wasn’t exactly a fragile human anymore anyway, but Scott and Derek had insisted, which is how Stiles had reluctantly agreed when Liam had awkwardly requested a ride home.

Despite the fact that Scott lived closer. Whatever.

He blames that unexpected detour for having to stop to get gas, and Liam agrees warily, even getting out to stand beside Stiles while Stiles pumps the gas.

It’s pretty ridiculous.

Well, it would be, but then Steve lands heavily on the roof of Stiles’ jeep and hoots, a low, urgent sort of sound paired with an intense glare into the darkness just beyond the light of the gas station, and Liam tips his nose up and goes very still.

“Get in the car,” he says, quiet and calm. “Text Scott.”

Stiles opens his mouth to argue, but Liam isn’t even listening anymore, his eyes are flashing and he’s clearly struggling to keep himself human, and maybe they could use some back up.

Stiles climbs back into his jeep, pulls out his phone, and texts Scott and Derek, “Possible issue. Flash’N’Fill.”

Then he shoves his phone into his pocket and starts pulling magic into the palms of his hand. Liam prowls into the darkness and Steve hops through the window into the passenger seat, glaring out the windshield. His phone vibrates and Stiles ignores it, unease and tension growing.

And then he hears Liam scream, once, and Stiles starts swearing. He throws the door open and he’s totally going to charge out there and save the day, but before he can, Liam’s bloodied body flies through the air and hits the ground, hard, skidding across the pavement.

Something in the shadows glows red – alpha red – and growls.

Liam is up and shoving Stiles back into the jeep a heartbeat later, before throwing himself in the backseat. Probably smearing blood all over, but whatever.

“Drive,” Liam snaps, voice lisping around his fangs, and Stiles does, twisting the key in the ignition and hitting the gas. 

He just doesn’t drive _away._

He speeds straight at the creature, headlights cutting through the shadow, and he has a brief glimpse of a massive, dark, twisted wolf, seconds before he slams into it and sends it tearing off into the woods, leaving a huge dent behind in the process.

“My insurance is totally not going to cover that,” he says, and Liam groans, because he hadn’t had a chance to put his seatbelt on and had flown into the back of the passenger seat.

And then Stiles tries to accelerate again but the engine sputters and dies, headlights dying with it, and he is so fucked.

“Liam,” he hisses. “Are you – the jeep won’t start.”

“Fuck,” Liam says, “If you fucking die on my watch –” He’s panting, clearly in pain, but Stiles can hear him struggling to get up.

“Why aren’t you healed?” he asks, trying to keep watch in all directions at the same time, while turning the key in the ignition. Sure, he’s still got magic pooled in his palms, but he’s been struggling with defensive magic that doesn’t rely on charcoal and diagrams and all sorts of pre-preparation, and he’s worried that the best he can do is some sort of pyrotechnic display.

“It’s not – I’m not healing,” Liam admits. “Start the car, we’ll just –”

“Oh fuck,” Stiles breathes. “It was an alpha, wasn’t it? It was totally an alpha!”

“… Yeah,” Liam, says, quiet. “Pretty sure. I need… stitches or… can you start the fucking car?”

Steve’s head jerks to the right, into the trees along the road, and Stiles starts swearing. The jeep won’t start and he’s got three options here – set off some explosions to hopefully scare the rogue alpha werewolf away, heal Liam and hope that somehow gives him the edge in whatever is about to happen, or die.

He reaches back and clamps a hand around Liam’s wrist and hisses the healing incantation. It may not even _work_ on werewolves, but he pours in as much magic and intention as he’s capable of when he’s so distracted and anxious.

Liam’s breathing lightens up a little and he says, “Okay. That’s better. I can—”

Something smashes on the hood and then skitters up, onto the roof of the jeep, rocking the car on its tires, and Stiles yelps.

“What was that?” he hisses. “Can you—”

“It’s still up there,” Liam whispers, and then Stiles hears it – a gentle, deliberate scraping against the metal roof, nails on a chalkboard – or claws, as the case may be.

“Should we get out?” Stiles asks, already frantically calling up more magic, closing his eyes and trying to remember the incantation for defensive shields, for anything at all.

“No,” Liam says.

The creature above them laughs, softly. 

And Stiles panics. He lashes out with the magic he’s got in his palms, almost blindly, his only intention to hurt. There’s a flash of light and the smell of burned flesh, a startled yelp, and then the creature is gone, jeep rocking again as it leaps into the darkness, only moments before Derek’s Camaro screeches around the corner. He breaks hard, fishtailing a little bit, headlights at an angle that manages to catch Stiles’ jeep and light up the ditch alongside the road, before disappearing back into shadow in the trees.

Derek is calling his name before he’s even out of the car, and Stiles hurriedly shoves his door open and stumbles out to meet him halfway across the road.

“I’m fine,” he says, but Derek is still searching him for wounds. “Liam’s hurt, he’s not healing. I tried to help, but I don’t know if my magic even works on you guys.”

It’s like Derek hasn’t even been listening. He’s still panicking, still running his hands over Stiles like he’s searching for blood.

“ _Hey_ ,” Stiles says, grabbing his hands. “Hey. I’m fine. But I think it was an alpha. It went that way.” He points into the woods. “I scared it off. You know.” He wiggles his fingers. “With magic.”

Derek grits his teeth, but at least he’s not looking for wounds anymore. “You weren’t supposed to stop,” he says. “Just go straight home.”

“I needed gas, I was taking Liam home!”

Derek closes his eyes. “Stiles. You were supposed to drive straight home, and Liam was going to get home on his own.”

Stiles blinks. Yeah, if the goal was that Stiles was never alone, the ten minute drive from Liam’s place after dropping him off would definitely have meant failing that goal. He hadn’t really thought it through. “Listen,” he says, deflecting. “I know you’re just trying to protect me, but you know I can take care of myself.”

Derek rolls his eyes but before he can argue, Liam is staggering out of the jeep, hand pressed to a huge, bloody hole in his side. “A little help?” he says.

“Wait in my car,” Derek says, and then he’s catching Liam before he collapses to the road, tearing his shirt off to see how bad the wound is.

Stiles snorts a little, because he isn’t going to just _wait in the car_ , obviously, and walks around to the front of his jeep to inspect the damage, just as Scott pulls up, late as usual. Scott glances over, but Stiles waves him off, because he’s _fine_ , and Scott hurries over to Liam.

There’s a big dent in the bumper and a matching one on the hood, and Stiles is about to pop it open to see if he can spot what went wrong inside, when he remembers the scratching on the roof. So he opens the passenger door and climbs up on top, turning on the flashlight in his phone to see the damage.

“Shit,” he breathes, because the alpha has scratched that same revenge symbol into the roof of his car, with careful, deliberate marks. The symbol wasn’t quite finished, though, interrupted by a black scorch mark over the driver seat, where Stiles’ magic had burst through. There’s a claw there, bloody at the base, like it had been torn out, and Stiles reaches over carefully and picks it up.

He shoves his phone in his pocket and grabs a small charcoal pencil, scribbling a few quick runes on the roof of the car, bloody claw in the middle of the intersecting lines. Then he carefully pricks his finger and presses a drop of his own blood onto the claw.

The effect is nearly instant – a sharp tug below his rib cage, anchored deep inside, and stretching off into the darkness, where the alpha had gone, binding them.

He closes his eyes and follows the tugging sensation until he reaches the end of the binding, where the alpha is racing through the trees. There are flashes of scent and sound, a few visuals of trees and sky and ground tipping beneath racing paws, and Stiles lets go, smug. He’ll be able to follow that Alpha anywhere it goes, no matter how far, which will make tracking it down and getting rid of it so much easier.

Derek is calling his name and Stiles quickly wipes the charcoal away and hops back to the ground.

“It scratched that rune into my roof,” he complains. “Insurance isn’t going to cover _that_ either.”

Derek is sniffing suspiciously, eyes narrowed, like he can smell the magic Stiles used, or maybe the magic linking him to a crazed alpha currently running through the woods.

And Stiles is going to tell him – he totally is. But maybe if he manages to find and get rid of the alpha first, it’ll keep anymore wolves from bleeding out on the pavement.

It’s worth trying, anyway.

*

Scott takes Liam for stitches, and Stiles’ dad is working late again, so he agrees, reluctantly, to let Derek stay over. It’s like he thinks that Derek and Stiles couldn’t possibly be depraved enough to indulge in sexy shenanigans under the sheriff’s roof or something.

It’s late when they get to Stiles’ house and Stiles jumps into the shower, leaving Derek glowering in his bedroom. He’s gotten pretty used to Derek’s need to sometimes skulk around in the shadows and glower like that’ll make his problems go away – dating or whatever isn’t exactly changing that, and Stiles respects it.  
When he gets out of the shower, he’s plotting how best to coax Derek into making out and making taking his pants off, but he needn’t have bothered.

Derek has him pressed up against the wall before the door is finished swinging shut. His hands are all pressed against the wall at either side of Stiles’ head and his face is pressed to Stiles’ neck and his mouth is open and hot against his skin.

“Okay,” Stiles says, readjusting his plan, and running his hands up Derek’s back, holding onto his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

Derek doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t move, and Stiles is okay with this, really. If this is what Derek needs, he’s on board. He kinda gets it. It would be hard, dealing with wolf instincts screaming ‘protect that fragile human boy’ all the time, especially when the human boy in question is a badass witch who can destroy things with a thought and a little push of magic. But he guesses he probably doesn’t help matters when he can’t even stay still when Derek tells him to stay still.

Not that Stiles has any regrets. He’s not going to change who he is just because he’s dating a super strong, super hot, super bossy, super protective asshole who happens to change into a wolf at will. Stiles likes being a spastic little shit who can’t stay still. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s one of the most charming things about him, which means Derek’s got to learn to deal, or this isn’t going to work out, and –

“Shut up,” Derek says, voice muffled.

Stiles frowns. “I’m pretty sure that was an internal monologue,” he says.

“No,” Derek tells him. “And you’re not a badass witch. You can barely defend yourself. Obviously. As proven tonight, when apparently you sat in the car and screamed while that alpha wolf was on top of your car.”

Liam is apparently a little bitch who can’t be trusted with a secret. Stiles snorts. “I scared it away with magic,” he says. “What can you do with magic?”

Derek lifts his head, eyes narrowed. “Stiles. When I tell you to do something, you need to listen. I can’t keep you safe if you don’t listen.”

“I’ve never _needed_ you to save me,” Stiles says, irritated. “That’s what I’m trying to say. Even before, I never needed you, and I definitely don’t now.”

He tries to shove Derek away and Derek doesn’t move, lifting an eyebrow like a dick instead, as if he’s proving some sort of point about how weak and fragile Stiles is. So Stiles rolls his eyes and flicks the tiniest bit of magic that’s always sparking beneath the skin of his fingertips at Derek, who flies across the room and trips over the computer chair.

While Derek’s still picking himself up, growling a little, Stiles walks nonchalantly over to his dresser to grab some shorts to wear for bed. “I told you,” he says, dropping his towel and pulling the shorts up over his hips. “I can handle myself.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, low. “I can’t let anything happen to you.”

Stiles turns around, frowning, and Derek is scowling, staring at the floor, like admitting he cares is something to be embarrassed about. Stiles sighs. “Anything could happen to me,” he says. “I mean, let’s be honest, whatever I end up dying from is probably going to be my own damned fault.”

Derek stalks to the window, and for half a second, Stiles worries that he’s going to go. He’s had enough of Stiles and his inability to take things seriously, and he’s just going to pop the window open and run away and Stiles will never see him again and that will be the worst.

Instead, he slides the window open for Steve, whose been watching them talk with narrow, skeptical eyes. Steve hops out of the window and takes off for an evening hunt, and Derek turns back.

“You don’t understand,” he says, and his words are careful now. “I _need_ to make sure nothing happens to you. I need to keep you safe, and warm, and – and fucking happy.”

Stiles grins, just a little. “Is this some wolfy instinct thing?” he asks.

Derek rolls his eyes and comes forward, backing Stiles against the wall again, though he goes willingly this time, still grinning. “No,” Derek huffs, his hands carefully coming up to cradle Stiles’ jaw. “I think it’s just like… a relationship thing.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and he does his best to think about it – though it’s hard, seeing as Derek follows that up with a kiss, the intense, deep, hot kind that makes it hard to breathe or keep his balance, let alone think anything through. 

But he supposes, as he lets his mouth open to Derek’s, hands tangling in Derek’s shirt to hold for balance, that he feels the same. That’s why he bound himself to the alpha who ambushed him on the road, to keep Derek safe. That’s why he goes out of his way to tease the scowls off Derek’s face whenever he can. That’s why his favourite thing is the second when Derek’s eyes widen with surprise and his face goes soft just before he laughs at something Stiles says. That’s why he pays so much attention to the heartstring that connects him to Derek, making sure he does what he can to keep the warm, bright, fuzzy feelings coming, because whenever Derek is scared or sad or angry, Stiles is scared or sad and angry, and he hates it.

So maybe they can come up with a compromise, a way to let Derek feel like he’s taking care of Stiles without Stiles having to give up all his badassness and revert entirely to a damsel in distress. Maybe they can take care of each other. Maybe Derek will let Stiles save him just as often as Derek gets to save Stiles.

But it doesn’t matter right _this_ second, because they’re stumbling blindly, feverishly, towards Stiles’ bed, and Derek’s hands are already down Stiles’ pants, and Stiles gives up thinking at all.

*

The jeep is in the shop and Stiles is waiting at the library, pouring through Deaton’s trusty magic book for any hint as to what the revenge rune might be. As far as he can tell, it’s just a warning – something very bad is coming, and it’s related to the history of Beacon Hills, and that probably means it’s something to do with Hale family lore. Or something.

Really, it all just seems a bit showy for Stiles’ taste, but whatever.

He loses interest and begins searching for other runes, ones which might help reassure Derek that Stiles isn’t quite as fragile as Derek might think he is. Sure, there has to be a rune for that – one which makes him harder to hurt?

He finally finds a few that may do the trick, and marks the page, a plan already forming in his mind.

Derek would hate this plan. But then, Stiles has always felt it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

*

“I’m going to Scott’s,” Stiles says. He’s a badass witch – his heart doesn’t skip a beat.

Derek slurps his milkshake. It’s the most normal date-like thing they do, aside from the making out. Derek takes Stiles out for milkshakes, even though all the sugar has Stiles bouncing off walls for hours afterwards.

“You’ll come over tomorrow?” he asks, and Stiles nods.

“Yeah, of course.”

“And call me if anything happens.”

“Anything? Like, what if I throw up from eating too many Doritos, or lose fantastically at Halo, or fall and bruise my knee or have a nightmare, or—”

“You know what I mean.” 

Stiles grins. “Yes, sir.” He swirls a curly fry through his own milkshake and pops it into his mouth. He’s only feeling the tiniest amount of guilt. Not enough to change his plans. And he totally plans to call Derek if he can’t handle himself… but he’s been practicing magic on werewolves for months, he can totally take care of this rogue Alpha situation. And bonus, maybe it’ll convince Derek that he can actually take care of himself.

Derek offers Stiles a sip of his milkshake and Stiles takes it obligingly, still grateful that he’d managed to talk Derek out of his ridiculous (and mildly romantic) “one milkshake, two straws” idea from the first night they’d done this. Stiles needs a whole milkshake. Nothing less will do.

Derek drives Stiles to his place to pick up his jeep, and kisses him before Stiles hops out of the Camaro. It’s a long, lingering kiss – long enough for Steve to hoot in protest before flying out the window and perching pointedly on Stiles’s dented up jeep.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Derek says, when he finally pulls away. For one quick second, Stiles worries that he _knows_ \-- but how could he? Stiles is a master liar, and a badass witch. But just in case, he can totally make sure Derek won’t be able to find him at all.

“It’s Scott and Halo and my body weight in Doritos,” Stiles says. “What can possibly go wrong?”

*

The art store has proven a thousand times more useful to Stiles than any magic store, even that one he’d visited and nearly blown up with Lydia. Crystals and cauldrons and magic wands may help him some day, but right now, it seems like the most he needs is charcoal sticks, coal bricks, and blood.

A magic wand would be cool, though.

“What exactly do you need me for?” Lydia asks, joining him in the charcoal pencil aisle as he picks up some charcoal powder, sticking it in his little basket. He’s already stalked up on charcoal sticks and a few pencils.

“Magic,” he says, with spirit fingers. She doesn’t look impressed.

“Should you even be here by yourself?”

Stiles shoots her a quick glare. “I’m perfectly capable of going to the art store by myself, Lydia,” he snaps.

Her eyebrows shoot up and she nods slowly – skeptically. “Okay. Sure. I’m sure Scott said you shouldn’t go anywhere alone, but whatever. What sort of magic?”

“Defensive. There was this alpha, and –”

“Scott told us this morning,” she said. “At the pack meeting.”

The pack meeting no one felt he should be invited to. Right. Stiles swallows down his annoyance. “Yeah. Well. If they’re coming after us, I’m going to make it pretty hard for them to get hurt me.”

“Derek’s got a pretty strict security detail on you,” she says.

Stiles ignores her, walking towards the cash. He’s a badass witch. Of course he can ditch his body guards. For their own protection, of course. “Do you want to help, or not? We need a blow torch.”

There’s a beat of silence. “I have a little one,” she says. “The kind for crème Brule.”

“It’ll probably work,” he says, paying for his charcoal and leaving the store.

*

Lydia looks skeptical, which is irritating. Of course Stiles knows what he’s doing, it’s going to be fine. He basically learned this from Derek and Scott, and everyone fucking knows, they’re masters at safety and good ideas.

His skin _does_ look pale and fragile under Lydia’s kitchen light, especially with the black defensive runes traced out in charcoal powder that run down the underside of his arm, from the crook of his elbow, to the delicate veins visible at his wrist.

“Just do it fast,” he says. Lydia’s eyes have never looked so wide and she looks pale. Steve is watching from just outside the window, and even he seems interested.

“This is a terrible idea,” she says. “Are you sure you got it right?”

“Lydia,” Stiles hisses, gritting his teeth, because the waiting is the worst part.

She swallows hard and hits to switch in the little blow torch and seconds later, white hot heat is curling around his skin, baking his flesh, and Stiles can’t help but scream. The flame flickers as it wraps around his arm, igniting the charcoal symbols, which melt into carbon black liquid. It only burns for a few seconds before the black liquid is swallowed up by his skin, leaving behind a sooty black ruin-shaped scar before running through his blood stream, lines of black twisting just beneath the surface of his skin.

It burns even hotter as it moves through his body, singeing him from the inside and changing each cell on a molecular level, branding it with magic, but it feels off – darker and oily. Like something has gone wrong.

The whole spell feels too big for Stiles to hold onto, he has no control at all, but he can’t stop now, throwing his head back as heat crawls up his neck, into his skull, pooling at his eyes, and then running out his tear ducts, until his face is streaked with sooty black tears.

The magic tapers off slowly, gently, and Stiles is still heaving with the need to scream or puke or tear his skin off where the scars still burn.

“Holy shit, Stiles,” Lydia says, before gently scrubbing at the black marks on his face.

He swallows and it sounds a bit like a sob. “Okay,” he says. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay.”

He looks at his arms, at the marks that are probably permanent, and says, “Is it coming off my face at least?”

“Yes.”

He closes his eyes and whispers a healing incantation to soothe the blistering burns on his arm. “That wasn’t so bad.” 

“Speak for yourself. Derek’s gonna kill me.”

Stiles opens his eyes again and says, “Derek doesn’t have to know.”

“He’s making sure you’re safe.” She frowns, studying his face for a moment, before looking down at his arms, brushing a finger over the marks. The skin feels thin and fragile. “I’m going to get some burn cream.”

“I can take care of myself, obviously.” He studies the scars, prodding them gently. Hopefully, if he did the runes right, they’ll make his flesh harder to puncture, make it harder to pin him, make him faster.

He bites his lip, tracing the mark, feeling unsettled. But he doesn’t have time for second guessing himself.

Lydia carefully dabs burn cream on his arm, but Stiles won’t let her bandage them. It’ll slow him down, and he’s got places to be, traps to set, alphas to capture, not only just to prove he _can_ , but to keep the others safe.

If Derek can make keeping Stiles safe his obsessive mission, Stiles can do the same for him. It’s time _someone_ did.

*

“Okay,” Stiles mumbles to himself, studying the trap he’s laid. He’s carefully traced runes in charcoal on the flattest stones he can find, forming a loop around half of a clearing, where the light from the moon – nearly full – is shining. He’s run lines of his own blood through the half circle, tracing out a crescent to represent the moon, and then an 8-pointed star in the centre, which will, hopefully, hold the alpha.

He’s got a nearly completed circle of mountain ash as back up, and another handful of the stuff in his pocket to finish the line, just in case. He’s not sure druid magic will work for him anymore, but hell, his magic is just his spark blown wide open, isn’t it? So it’s still spark magic, just… more. So it has to make mountain ash work. Right? He’s doing his best to believe it will because belief is what made it work the last time, and it is pretty much the last thing keeping him from certain death, so.

It’s totally going to work.

It has to. He’s only got one shot at this, and he’s anxious, his blood itching beneath his skin, the marks on his arm still burning. He wonders if he’s getting sick, if he’s getting a fever.

When everything is ready and he can feel the magic humming in the trap and beneath his skin, Stiles closes his eyes and searches through the blood bonds to find the one that doesn’t quite fit – the one that wasn’t given willingly. Then he wraps his mind around that heartstring and _tugs_.

“Come here, you bastard,” he mumbles, which isn’t the best magical incantation he can think of, but it’ll get the job done. It’s the intention that matters – as long as Stiles has the alpha’s blood, he can pretty much wrap his magic around it like a blanket, and do all manner of painful things to it.

Now, though, he just wants to talk.

It doesn’t take long.

Steve has been flying a perimeter in the sky, watching for the alpha, and it’s only ten minutes or so before he darts down to perch on Stiles’ shoulder, a united front. Two minutes after that, and Stiles hears growling behind him.

He spins, squinting into the darkness, and backs up a little. All he needs is for the alpha to take one step into the trap and it will be stuck.

“Hello?” he calls. 

The growling stops, it’s silent for a long, tense moment, and then a man steps out of the trees. He’s tall and lean, all planes and angles, with the scary sort of cheekbones, the kind with stark shadows beneath them. He’s also naked, and, Stiles suspects, blind.

“Well,” he says, with an accent that somehow makes him seem incredibly civilized, despite the fact that he’s just casually strolling around the Preserve at night, completely naked. “I must say, you weren’t what I was expecting.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what he was expecting either, but it wasn’t this. Steve shifts nervously on his shoulder. But the man is in the trap now so, hopefully, that means he’s not a danger any more.

“What were you expecting?” he asked.

The man tips his head, sniffling delicately, before his lips curl up in a bit of a smirk. “So much power,” he purrs. “Whatever do you plan to do with it?”

He clears his throat. “Make you leave Beacon Hills,” he says, trying his best to sound like he isn’t growing more and more freaked out.

The man laughs. “Why don’t we start with introductions. I am, of course, Deucalion, and you are?”

He says his name like Stiles should know what that means, but he doesn’t. “You’re trapped,” Stiles tells him, because maybe the blindness has stopped Deucalion from realizing that he’s not exactly in control of this situation. “I won’t let you out, not unless you promise you’ll leave Beacon Hills, without hurting anyone.”

Deucalion ignores him. “You smell of blood, boy,” he says. “And not only your own. It’s practically dripping from your fingertips. Blood and magic and darkness. What _are_ you?”

“I’m a witch,” Stiles snaps. “And you don’t seem to realize how easy it would be for me to tear you apart, so say you’ll leave town so I won’t have to! I’m not going to let you hurt Derek!”

Deucalion smiles, slowly, and comes closer, stopping just at the edge of the trap, like he knows it’s there, even though he can’t see. “That was your first mistake,” he says quietly. “Thinking I was here for Derek Hale, when a natural alpha’s power is so much sweeter. Your second mistake is thinking this little trap can hold me.”

Stiles takes a step back. “It can,” he says, but he’s nervous now. But no matter what, the runes on his arms should keep him safe… Maybe he should have tested them out first, though.

“Silly little witch. All I need is a tiny bit of your blood to break it.”

“You can’t get my blood,” Stiles says, shoving his hand into his pocket where he stashed the last bit of mountain ash. “You’re stuck in there.”

“Third mistake,” Deucalion said apologetically. “Assuming I came alone.”

He tries to run, but they’re on him almost too quickly for Stiles to react. So much for the rune to make him faster.

Werewolves, eyes glowing red, too many to count, drag him to the ground, their claws digging into his arms, shoulders, legs, some into his stomach, pinning him easily, like he’s not warded at all. His blood wells up and runs into the ground and it’s so fast and so frantic that he he’s bleeding and screaming in pain before he can even pull up any magic to push them away. 

Steve’s screaming too, dive-bombing the wolves from above, and they ignore him, until one bats him away with an easy swipe of a paw.

Stiles feels every one of Steve’s broken bones in his own body.

There are too many of them, the moon blocked out by their grinning, wolfy faces, glowing red eyes, and it’s only been a few seconds since they charged out of the woods at him.

He yanks the mountain ash out of his pocket and throws it up into their faces and two of then shriek and pull away, but the others just pin him more firmly, laughing as he thrashes to get free.

He lashes out with magic, but the alphas seem barely phased by it, their wounds healing almost before they can even feel them.

He changes track, desperate, and works instead of shielding himself, on making it harder for them to hold him, to hurt him. He’s only been practicing that particular magic for a day or so, and it’s harder to coax his mind through the incantations when his entire body is screaming with pain. The wards were supposed to prevent this, but they don’t seem to be working at all.

The other defensive magic starts to work though – the pain is dulling and the wolves are growing more frustrated as they lose their grip, their claws deflecting away from his skin like he’s suddenly made of stone.

After that, it’s all adrenaline, fueled by that tiny victory, and he’s pushing his way free, calling up all the magic he has, now that the pain has dimmed, and he’s totally going to destroy them all.

Which is when Scott charges into the clearing with a snarl, Derek close behind him, and everything goes off the fucking rails again.

Stiles can’t shield them both and himself, and he can’t attack the alphas without hurting Scott and Derek too, he isn’t skilled enough to pick and choose his targets. And the alphas have given up on him and are tearing into Scott and Derek, who are fighting back just as viciously, with little regard for the wounds they receive in the process.

They’re so desperate to save Stiles that they’ve forgotten entirely that every time they get hurt, he feels it.

Sure, he’s got a large enough coven now that he doesn’t actually bleed when they bleed, but he still feels shadow claws tearing into his sides, he still feels his shoulders ripping from their sockets before being shoved ruthlessly back in, his skill still echoes when they are thrown into trees, fractures healed in seconds.

“Stiles,” Derek says, as one of the alphas drags him to the ground. “ _Run._ ”

Their pain is too much, on top of his own wounds, and he moans, dizzy, and staggers a little. His own shielding magic falters, and he tries the healing incantation, but his tongue feels thick and clumsy in his mouth. One of the alphas – the brutishly large one – senses it and is on him in a second, dragging him back to the ground and straddling him. The wolf’s claws are piercing Stiles’ shoulders, his teeth at Stiles’ throat, and Deucalion says, “Don’t bite him. Bring him to me.”

Stiles screams when the wolf drags him by the claws piercing his shoulders, and his head falls back. He hears, as if from a distance, that Scott and Derek and snarling, shouting his name, but when he opens his eyes and looks back at them, they’re both pinned to the ground by the alpha wolves, still struggling, but they’ve already lost the battle. 

The wolf drops him at Deucalion’s feet, right over the edge of the trap, and Stiles feels his blood soaking the ground, ruining the lines he’d carefully drawn. The magic of the trap trembles and then dissipates. 

Deucalion cups his jaw, tipping Stiles’ face up towards the moon. “Don’t try it, Stiles,” he says, almost gently, as if he knew Stiles was pulling up every last bit of magic he had in him to launch some sort of last minute attack.

But Stiles isn’t weak – when are these wolves going to catch on to the fact that he’s a badass witch who can take care of himself?

His body is on fire and his familiar is lying very still in the grass, but Stiles still has control over his magic, and he pushes it at Deucalion, the same way he’d pushed it at Derek the other night. Deucalion flies back and collapses to the ground and before he can get up, Stiles has him pinned, palm pressed against Deucalion’s chest, magic thrumming as it runs straight from Stiles’ body, through his hand, and into Deucalion’s bones, holding him still.

An alpha behind him growls, stalking closer, and Stiles says, “I’ll blow you to pieces before he has a chance to save you.”

He feels Deucalion push against his magic, but his can barely make his muscles twitch, and eventually, he gives up.

“Don’t touch him,” he says to the other alphas. “You know if you harm me, your friends are dead.”

Stiles shoots a quick glare at Scott and Derek, because it’s their own damned fault that they’ve fucked up his plan. But he can’t keep this up for long – his hands are beginning to tremble.

“Let them go,” he says. “And I’ll let you go. And we can pretend none of this ever happened.”

Deucalion grins. “We could try,” he allows. “But I can promise you I won’t forget.”

Stiles scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’ll make a truce, for now,” he says, almost mockingly. “You and your foolish friends leave relatively unharmed. But I can promise, I’ll be back.”

“You’ll never get Scott,” Stiles says, but everything is turning gray and tipping sideways.

“Silly boy,” Deucalion says, as Stiles’ magic fails and he pulls away. “Who said I wanted Scott anymore? And you might want to check those runes on your arm. I don’t think they say what you want them to.”

And then he’s gone, as silent as he’d come, taking his pack of alphas with him, and all that’s left is the pain, the moon in the sky above, and Stiles’ wet, wheezy attempts to breathe.

Derek is there a second later, panicking. He’s covered in blood but already healed, and Stiles doesn’t have time for his bullshit right now. He’s angry, _so_ angry. 

And Steve isn’t moving.

So Stiles crawls to Steve and carefully picks him up, using every last bit of his magic and energy to croon healing incantations until Steve’s fitful breathing and weak heart are back to normal.

It’s all too much and he passes out, still cradling the stupid owl, a moment later.

 

*

Stiles wakes up and he’s alone. The sun is up and Steve is sleeping beside him on the bed, not even stirring when Stiles sits up. He closes his eyes and runs his consciousness almost idly over the heartstrings linking him to his coven and to Deucalion, and each link to his coven hums with strength and good health. Deucalion’s is far softer, which must mean he isn’t close enough to be a threat, or maybe the bond is fading. And Derek’s also hums with a good deal of rage, which is good, because if Stiles could feel his own, he’s pretty sure it would be absolutely _livid_.

His anger feels like a dark cloud, hanging over his head and boiling through his veins.

Scott’s downstairs, clearly on babysitting duty, and he waves from the living room as Stiles goes into the kitchen. He’s found that the best way to replenish energy lost from magic use was sugar. Lots of sugar. So he pours himself a bowl of Cheerios and spoons some sugar on top, before joining Scott in the living room.

“Derek’s not here?”

Scott looks uncomfortable. “He left a while ago, to track down some leads. Apparently his mother used to know that blind dude, so Derek thought he might be able to find a way to stop him. Apparently he’s built himself a pack of alphas? I’m not even sure how that’s possible.”

“How did you guys even find me last night?” Stiles asks. He’s doing his very best to keep his frustration and anger out of his voice.

“You hid your trail from Derek. So when he couldn’t find you, he called me.” Scott shrugs.

“And you don’t think that’s kind of, I don’t know, fucking creepy? That’s like, Edward Cullen-levels of creepy. What’s he going to do next, damage my jeep so I can’t go anywhere without asking for a ride? Forbid me from seeing my friends?”

Scott blinks. “Stiles. You nearly got yourself killed. If Derek hadn’t called, and we hadn’t found you –”

“I don’t need the two of you following me around!” Stiles shouts.

“If you hadn’t lied and gone off to get yourself killed, maybe I’d agree with you!”

“I can handle it! I was about to handle it! And then, because you two got in the way, I couldn’t, not without taking you down as well. When are you going to get that I’m not fragile? I can take care of myself. You’re not – you’re not my alpha, Scott! The only way this is going to work is if you trust me to take care of myself.”

Scott shakes his head, frowning a little. “I’m not your alpha,” he agrees, quiet. “But I’m your friend. And the only way this mess works is if you trust _me_ to take care of wolf business, Stiles. And this was wolf business, not magic business. What did you expect us to do?”

Stiles flinches, because it’s true. There’s a delicate leadership balance, where Stiles leads in matters of magic, and Scott in wolf business. Even Derek lets Scott lead in wolf business.

But he’s too angry to concede that maybe Scott has a point. Stiles shakes his head and goes back into the kitchen, dropping his bowl of Cheerios into the sink before grabbing his keys.

“Where are you going?” Scott asks, alarmed and following him to the door.

“Out. I’ve got things to do.” It’s true – and also convenient.

“Derek doesn’t want you going out alone,” Scott says.

Stiles yanks his jeep door opened and snaps, “Derek can go fuck himself,” before climbing in. He locks the doors before Scott can follow, and ignores him as he backs out of the driveway.

*

The owl is a little worried. He doesn’t _want_ to be, because the owl doesn’t _really_ care, except in the way that he might, a tiny bit.

It’s hard not to care when his boy is running off doing suicidal things that make the Wolf sad. The owl _likes_ the wolf. The wolf builds him tree houses and comfy beds, whereas the stupid boy would probably expect the owl to sleep on the floor if it was up to him or, worse, next to him in bed. And while it’s true that the owl has slept on the pillow once or twice, those were in times of physical distress, in which close contact with his boy helped him heal faster.

The truth of the matter is that the owl is hardly an expert on magic. He can feel it, and he can contain it, and he can balance it, working off instinct, but at the same time, he has never done this before, and neither has the boy.

And, as the owl has pointed out countless times before, his boy really is the stupidest, stupidest boy.

The boy hasn’t even noticed that his magic is changing, growing darker, because most of the time, the boy seems to think it’s just a game. But his magic _is_ getting burning hotter, and as it does, his blood is running hotter, and he is more prone to fits of anger and the boy struggled with making stupid, impulsive decisions even before his ability to reason was affected by the magic boiling in his blood stream. His eyes are haunted by shadows and he smells of rot and decay.

Now, the owl worries the boy is going to do something incredibly stupid. Because heartstrings, as the boy has taken to calling his coven bonds, aren’t as unbreakable as they may seem.

The owl can feel it now, as he watches his boy walk away from the alpha. His heartstrings are vibrating at a tense frequency. And it’s not impossible for a witch to sever them, if he really wants to. It’s just, usually they aren’t that suicidal.

Death isn’t the only thing that can break a witch’s heart. Sometimes stupidity can do it too.

And the owl’s boy is very, very stupid.

*

“We need to tell Derek,” Lydia says, frowning. She’s cleaning the leaking scars with iodine, but Stiles isn’t sure that’s going to help.

“No we don’t,” Stiles says quickly. “We just need to fix it. He doesn’t need to know.

“He probably already does. My entire house smells like burned, rotting flesh, and he’s probably lurking somewhere outside. You know Derek.”

“That’s creepy,” Stiles says. “Don’t you think that’s kind of creepy?” Lydia is taking pictures of the scars on his arms with her phone, still frowning. Stiles had brought over all his books on rune work and wards so they could figure out what went wrong and hopefully fix it, but other than the leaking black stuff, he feels okay.

“He’s a former alpha werewolf with no pack who is mystically bound to you through blood,” she says with a shrug, wrapping his arms in bandages. “You really think keeping you safe isn’t his number one priority?”

Which really says nothing about, like. Love. Or even affection. Or appreciation. What if that’s all it was? What if it was just the bond? Derek was so desperate to replace his lost pack that he’s mistaking the coven bond for something else… Because if Stiles is honest, Derek was never interested, before the bond. And Stiles has never really been able to figure out just what Derek saw in him at all.

Until Derek accidentally bonded himself to Stiles. Then all of a sudden, it’s like his whole _world_ revolved around Stiles.

And that wasn’t right. Or fair. And, to be totally honest, it sort of broke Stiles’ heart a little bit. And made him angry with himself, for forcing Derek into a situation he didn’t really want to be in. People have been fucking with Derek that way his whole life.

Stiles looks away, blinking back tears, as she finishes up with the gauze. If she asks, he’ll say it’s because of the smoke that still lingers, or maybe the pain. “I want to keep him safe too,” he says. “That’s all I’m trying to do.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s all?”

Stiles doesn’t know anymore.

 

*

There’s a nagging pain in his chest. Stiles rubs at it absently while he gets out of his jeep the park. It’s a silly idea, but he wants to be alone, and he’s pretty sure someone’s lurking at home, just ready to pounce on him and shout about how stupid he is for putting himself in danger by going to the art store by himself. Usually, when he wants to be alone, he goes into the Preserve, but he doesn’t _actually_ want to die, and he’s still feeling a little off balance from the runes coursing through his system.

He’s not stupid enough to think that he’s truly alone, though. Derek’s got someone following him, he’s sure.

And that just frustrates him.

He finds a bench and sits on it, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them, bandages hidden in the arms of his hoodie, hood tugged up over his head. Steve is flying low over the nearby playground, screeching and dive bombing the children who run in circles, screaming. That pretty much means Stiles only gets to hang out in relative solitude for as long as it takes animal control to show up.

Sure, they won’t shoot an endangered owl. But they’ll tranq it, cage it, and cart it off into the wilderness. He’s pretty sure Steve is losing all his natural hunting and navigating instincts, growing fat, lazy and spoiled with all the foot Derek cooks for him, or hunts for him, and all the cozy places he gets to sleep. He wouldn’t last a day out in nature.

Stiles is only alone for five minutes before Derek is easing onto the bench beside him, and Stiles sighs, glancing over at him. Derek’s frowning, but he doesn’t look angry. He’s uncertain and wary, but not angry. Stiles can feel Derek’s wariness singing through the heartstring.

“I didn’t go out to the Preserve,” Stiles says. His voice is quieter than he thought it would be. “It’s a park filled with children and their parents in the middle of the day. What could possibly happen?”  
Derek’s hands are compulsively rubbing on his thighs, a nervous gesture. “Anything,” he says with a helpless shrug. He turns to look at Stiles and confesses, “I’m not sure what you want from me.”

Stiles isn’t sure either. Honesty, maybe? Trust? “You didn’t trust me,” he says finally. “Last night. I told you I could take care of myself, and you didn’t trust me.”

“No,” Derek says quietly. “You told me you were going to Scott’s, and instead, you went off to the Preserve and ran into a pack of crazy alpha werewolves.”

“I didn’t just happen to run into them,” Stiles says, exasperated. “I called them. I summoned them, into a trap, that would have worked perfectly well, if you and Scott hadn’t gotten in the way.”

Derek snorts. “Yeah, you had that perfectly under control,” he says, rolling his eyes. “How did you _summon _them?”__

__“There was blood, on the hood of my car,” Stiles says with a shrug. He pulls out the jazz hands, and adds tiredly, “Magic.”_ _

__Derek is ominous in his silence, and then he says carefully, “So it wasn’t just a stupid accident, a suicidal mission. It was a _plan_. You lied to me and you lied to Scott and you sneaked off alone to _summon_ a pack of crazy alpha werewolves.”_ _

__“Pretty much.”_ _

__“And if you died, Stiles? What then? We’d just find your body, bloody and broken and just lying there? We’d just -- _I’d_ just find you that way?”_ _

__“I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have left much of my body behind,” he says sarcastically. Thoughtlessly._ _

__“For fuck’s sake!” Now Derek is angry. “You can’t be that stupid. How can you think – Stiles, that is not _okay_. If I found your body, if you died, if I couldn’t keep you safe, how do you think that would be okay? That I’d just get over it?”_ _

__Stiles is having trouble – he’s got all this pent up rage and it’s shimmering through his body, and if he was thinking, he’d realize that it’s moving through him the way magic does, hot and fast through his blood, out of control. But he’s not thinking, and his tongue is moving more quickly than his brain, and he just needs to get it _out_ \-- the rage and the terror that this isn’t real, that he _is_ an idiot, because there’s no possible way this could be real._ _

__So he says, “You’ve got plenty of experience getting over not being able to keep people safe, though.”_ _

__And it feels like a punch to the gut. It’s sudden and shocking and painful and knocks him off balance for a long moment, and then he realizes that it’s not _him_ feeling that, it’s Derek, and he’s feeling it so loudly that it’s singing through the heartstring._ _

__And Stiles doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with him and his mouth and his fury making him want to lash out and hurt. But Derek is already burying that hurt under layers and layers of denial, hiding it so no one knows, not even Stiles._ _

__“I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to say that,” Stiles says desperately, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing but everything that comes out of his mouth is making it worse. “It’s just, it’s hard to think this is real, it’s so unhealthy, you’re so preoccupied with keeping me safe, you won’t even acknowledge that I can take care of myself, and –”_ _

__Something feels broken in his chest and he rubs at it, keeps rubbing, trying to soothe the ache, but it isn’t working._ _

__“This isn’t being over-protective, this is being a _pack,_ ” Derek says. “Taking care of each other, working together, relying on each other’s strengths, protecting each other. That’s what a pack does, Stiles.”_ _

__“You don’t have a pack,” Stiles whispers, broken. His heart is pounding, louder and louder, and he can barely hear anything over the sound of it, and the pain just below it._ _

__“Yes I do,” Derek says. He’s quiet, patient, and he reaches out and takes Stiles’ hand to stop it from scratching at his chest. “I have you.”_ _

__“No you don’t,” Stiles says, and something leaks into his voice, something heavy and final and magic – and the pounding stops and the pain stops and it’s replaced by an echoing, startling silence. And that hurts more than anything else. Stiles goes still, eyes wide, frantically searching for Derek’s heartstring, but it’s gone, like it was never there, and that can’t be possible, it can’t fucking be possible, Deaton said, they were permanent, unbreakable. But it’s gone._ _

__“Stiles,” Derek says, frowning. “Are you okay?” And then he’s shoving Stiles’ sleeves up, eyes going wide at the bandages. “What have you done? What happened?”_ _

__Stiles can’t breathe. He wants to scream but he can’t remember how to make a sound, his entire world has narrowed down to that one tender spot in his chest that used to bond him to Derek, where now, it’s just bruises throbbing with softly remembered pain. It’s like he’s gone blind, he hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on the gentle reassurance of Derek’s bond to keep him grounded, and now it’s gone._ _

__He starts to cry. Nothing matters except that empty spot in his chest – not the park, or the frightened children and their parents watching his complete meltdown, not Steve, who has come to perch on the back of the bench and watch critically. Not Derek, who is panicking too, holding both of his hands and freaking the fuck out, but Stiles can’t even hear what he’s saying over his own harsh, desperate sobs as he tears his hoodie off and then goes for his shirt._ _

__Derek finally manages to grab his hands, holding them still. “Stiles,” he says firmly. “Breathe.”_ _

__But he _can’t_. Every breath burns. His eyes burn, worse than when the black fluid leaked from them in Lydia’s kitchen._ _

__He’s shaking and heaving and he doesn’t know how to fix it, because it feels bigger than a panic attack – like the world has actually ended, and he’s the only one who knows._ _

__Derek swears and pulls Stiles close, crushing him against his chest, until Stiles can hear his heartbeat. It’s instantly soothing, at least a little, because he’s heard that same steady beat for months through the heartstring._ _

__Stiles closes his eyes and listens and his breathing starts trying to match Derek’s breathing – shaky at first, but evening out. But he still keeps crying._ _

__“Tell me what you need,” Derek says gently, stroking his back. “How can I help you?”_ _

__Stiles’ nose is running, leaving a wet spot on Derek’s shirt, which is wrinkled where Stiles’ hands are twisted into fists, holding on tightly. He can still hear Derek’s heart._ _

__But the bond is gone, broken like it was never there at all. And maybe Derek doesn’t know yet. But it’s like Lydia said – Derek’s a former alpha with no pack, of course he’d latch onto a mystical bond and give it more significance than it should have had._ _

__And as soon as Derek realizes those feelings are gone, he’ll leave. Or he’ll be so, so angry at Stiles for manipulating him in the first place – for forcing him to feel what he didn’t naturally feel._ _

__Stiles needs to be as far away from Derek as he can possibly get, to let the bruises in his chest heal, and he starts to cry harder when he realizes it._ _

__“I need you to get away from me,” he sobs. “I need you to stay the fuck away.”_ _

__He doesn’t need to feel Derek’s shock, his hurt, or his heart breaking through the heartstring. The tremor that goes through his body is proof enough._ _

__Steve shakes his head and looks away sadly. And Stiles can’t look at Derek at all._ _

__*_ _

__Stiles is alone and that’s how he wants it. It’s been a few days, and he hasn’t seen Derek, and that’s for the best. Black still leaks from his arms sluggishly, and he does his best to keep the wounds close, to find out what’s happening to him and how to stop it, but research is hard when his mind is foggy._ _

__He’s thought about going to Melissa for help, but what would she know about magical infections?_ _

__Scott comes over sometimes, tries to talk, but Stiles doesn’t have much to say. He’s staying inside, staying safe, not putting himself at risk, and that should be enough. He knows that there are always two wolves lurking outside his house, protecting him, and he doesn’t lash out or get angry, because if that’s what Derek needs, Stiles will let him have it._ _

__Lydia calls but she only came over once. She’d started to scream when she saw the leaking black marks on his arms, and hadn’t been back since, though she calls every few hours to reassure him that she’s working on it, that they’re trying to find Deaton, but he’s fucked off again the way he always does when someone needs him._ _

__Steve doesn’t come home anymore._ _

__Stiles doesn’t mind being alone. He sleeps a lot, fighting off the infection, fighting through the fever, but he can take care of himself. And this way, no one will get hurt trying to keep him safe._ _

__And sometimes, when he gets too lonely and the empty place where his bond to Derek used to be throbs like a broken heart, he sketches a few quick runes on the table, sprinkles it with his blood, and begs a bat or a bird or some other creature to take his mind out to Derek’s house._ _

__Scott and his pack meet there frequently, probably because it’s easier to plot how to take down a pack of alphas without parents freaking out in the background. Stiles perches whatever animal had let him temporarily have the reins on a windowsill and listens and it soothes away so much of his loneliness and the anger he can’t seem to control._ _

__They talk about Deucalion and the other alphas, and plot ways to trick them, trap them, or convince them to leave town. Sometimes they talk about an upcoming eclipse, as if it has some mystical powers over werewolves, but Stiles doesn’t listen to their plans too closely._ _

__He watches Derek instead, and is soothed by how Derek seems perfectly fine. He’s not pining, not overly worried, not losing his mind because of what Stiles said or what he did. It’s proof that Stiles was right, that it was never real._ _

__It still _hurts_ , but at least he knows he did the right thing. It’s something to hold onto when he starts burning up._ _

__Steve is always there, with the pack, watching Derek just as closely. That hurts too._ _

__And then, after a week, Stiles collapses on the windowsill in the body of an overly-plump sparrow, and then gets angry. The pack is a mess – they’re broken and bloody, furious, they’ve clearly just come off worse in a fight against someone, and given how they’re not healing, Stiles bets it’s an alpha. Even Scott is a mess, looking shaken, his confidence blown._ _

__They’re all arguing about something, trying to assign blame, but Stiles knows where the blame belongs. At Deucalion’s feet and, by extension, his own._ _

__The meeting breaks up and he’s about to let the spell go, to come back to the place where he left his body, lying in bed at home, and then Derek grabs Scott’s arm before he can duck out the front door._ _

__“How is he?” Derek asks quietly._ _

__“Not good,” Scott says with a small shrug. “He doesn’t eat. He just sleeps, and rants and raves. He’s feverish. He’s bleeding black, and Lydia doesn’t know why. Deaton’s not answering his phone, so he’s no help.”_ _

__“Does he – has he asked for me?”_ _

__Stiles heart beats a little faster, and Scott winces. “No,” he says, gentle. “I’m sorry. He’s not himself. You saw. It’s like he’s panicking all the time. Magic is just leaking out of him, but it’s dark magic, not electrical like before. It leaves shadows that shouldn’t be there, and he doesn’t notice. He’s _surrounded_ by shadows that move on their own.”_ _

__Derek closes his eyes. “Just keep him safe,” he says. “Fuck. We’ll deal with Deucalion, and we’ll find Deaton, and we’ll take care of him. Just keep him safe for now.”_ _

__Scott says quietly, “Deucalion nearly killed us. I’m still not sure—”_ _

__“We’ll handle it,” Derek snaps._ _

__And then Stiles opens his eyes and he’s back in his bedroom, barely able to breathe. For the first time, he can see the shadows, skittering over his skin and across his blankets, up the walls, twitching and stretching, changing shapes as they go, and leaving darkness that takes a few moments to fade behind them._ _

__*_ _

__The owl is not _afraid_ of the dark. Owls do very well in the dark, thank you very much. But the dark and darkness are two entirely different things, and the darkness that has leeched inside of his boy is too dark even for owls._ _

__So the owl flew away like a coward, and even considered returning to the woods to live out whatever little bit remains of his life before the stupid boy destroys them both._ _

__But even the owl on his most frightened day cannot entire abandon his boy, or the Wolf who watches over his boy, so he goes to the Wolf instead. He figures it’s nearly the same as watching over his boy, who he cannot bear to look at any longer, because the Wolf is not afraid of anything, and will take care of the boy as best he can._ _

__And, of course, the owl knows every time the boy’s eyes peer from the face of a woodland creature that happens to perch in the window – songbirds, mostly, who should be sleeping when it’s dark outside, and who would make such a lovely snack._ _

__Maybe his boy isn’t so stupid after all, the owl decides, after another night in which the boy showed up in the window again, craving his coven and his pack even after he’s rejected them both. He’s not entirely set on self-destruction._ _

__Maybe he’s just lost. And the owl wonders if maybe it’s his job to lead the boy to safety._ _

__Probably._ _

__Fucking magic._ _

__*_ _

__

__

__Stiles’ dad is afraid of him._ _

__That hasn’t happened since the nogitsune, and it frightens Stiles, too. He knows he doesn’t look well. It’s only been a little over a week, and his face is waxy and colourless, with deep shadows under his eyes and his cheekbones. His skin feels paper thin, like his bones might poke through, and shadows creep and crawl over it. Sometimes blackness drips from his fingertips and puddles on the ground around him._ _

__His magic has grown dark and twisted and rational thought comes and goes in flashes of lucidity, like polaroid pictures that aren’t given enough time to fully develop before they’re tossed away._ _

__But despite his fear, his dad keeps coming home, keeps checking in, keeps sitting with him and talking with him like he’s just sick, not turning into some twisted creature._ _

__Sometimes Stiles dreams he’s becoming like the human familiar those witches had brought with them – a ghoul, falling apart and stitched back together._ _

__Other times, he dreams he’s fading away into a shadow entirely._ _

__And still, he wakes up to find his father nearby, offering tea and honey, or a sandwich, or to binge watch Game of Thrones. Whatever it takes._ _

__They’re on the couch now, TV on, and Jon Snow knows nothing, which is funny, because neither does Stiles. Every light in the house is on to keep Stiles’ shadows at bay, but they’re still slipping and sliding in the corners and out the window. And Stiles’ dad has stopped paying attention to the TV and is staring at Stiles and it’s fucking annoying._ _

__“I can feel you staring,” he says finally, his tone sharp. His dad doesn’t look away._ _

__“Just wondering if you’re going to get that.”_ _

__Stiles turns slowly to look at his father, his face blank and his eyes sparking with anger and irritation, but before he can lash out, he sees his phone on the small table between them, flashing with Lydia’s name._ _

__He growls and snatches his phone, storming out of the room and upstairs._ _

__“What,” he snaps._ _

__“Nice to hear from you too,” she says, sarcastic. “How are you?” Unlike the rest of them, she never has time for his moods._ _

__“Fine,” he tells her. It’s a lie. He prowls the edges of his room, glaring out his window. It feels like there are eyes everywhere, staring in at him, from the window and the front door and the mirror._ _

__“Deaton called me. He’s on his way back, but it’ll take a few hours. I sent him the pictures of the marks on your arm, Stiles. He says you got them wrong – they’re mirror images. They’re not protecting you, they’re poisoning you, and the only way to make them stop is to remove them.”_ _

__“With magic?” he asks, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to keep from shaking apart._ _

__She hesitates. “No,” she says. “Surgically, I guess. He knows how to do it. He’s on his way, just hold on, okay? We’ll fix it, before it becomes irreversible.”_ _

__“It can do that?”_ _

__“If not dealt with in time. But we’re going to deal with it. Just stay home, stay safe. Only a few hours more.”_ _

__“Yeah,” he says._ _

__He hangs up before she does and stares sightlessly around his bedroom, trying to think over the sound of buzzing in his ear. He needs all of this to stop, he needs silence, he needs the burning under his skin to go away._ _

__And he has a knife. One Derek keeps very sharp for him._ _

__Stiles lurches off his bed and grabs his knife before he has time for any hint of rationality to hold him back, and starts hacking at the pulsing black marks on his arms, carving through his skin straight to the bone._ _

__It hurts but he doesn’t stop, not even as the blood runs down his arm and drips to the floor, soaking his clothing. He screams and he screams but he keeps cutting, cutting, cutting, pieces of skin and flesh falling to the floor._ _

__He hears his father call his name, and start for the stairs, but there are still pieces of the scarred marks burned into his arm, and shadows skittering under the surface._ _

__He panics and starts cutting faster and deeper._ _

__The sheriff throws his door open and everything seems to freeze for a moment, because there is literally a river of blood running down Stiles’ arm and staining his carpet and a knife buried in his arm._ _

__“ _Stiles_ ,” the sheriff says. “What are you _doing_?”_ _

__“I have to make it stop,” Stiles gasps, sobbing. “I have to cut it off before they get stuck.”_ _

__“Give me the knife. Christ, Stiles, you’re going to bleed out.”_ _

__But he’s not _done_ yet and his awareness has narrowed down to that one thing – get the marks off his arm – and nothing else matters. Not the pain or the blood or his dad panicking._ _

__And then his dad tries to grab the knife from his hand._ _

__Everything’s slick with blood and Stiles isn’t even thinking, he just _lashes out_ , screaming a strange, guttural sound that tastes like blood and all the shadows that have danced around him for days just coalesce into a black ball of energy that blasts from Stiles into his father._ _

__Stiles freezes, eyes wide and locked on his dad’s face. The sheriff looks just as stunned for a long moment, and then his face crumples, skin ripping and eyes going black for a moment before they’re suddenly, blindingly white, and the sheriff falls to the ground like a puppet without any strings._ _

__“D-Dad?” Stiles whispers._ _

__He drops to his knees in the blood, knife falling to the ground, forgotten, and crawls to his father’s side._ _

__“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, Dad, I’m sorry,” he babbles, as he feels for a pulse and tears join the bloody mess on his face. “Wake up, I didn’t mean to.”_ _

__But the sheriff is breathing, at least, shallow and even, and his heart is still beating, though more slowly than Stiles thinks it should._ _

__And little shadows are moving sluggishly under his skin._ _

__“No, no, no,” Stiles breathes, slapping his hand over the shadows. They freeze under his hand and he can _feel_ them, and Stiles acts on instinct, reaching for the darkness the way he reaches for the magic under his own skin. He pulls it back into himself, and it’s like breathing in, pulling the shadows back inside himself, even if it feels like cracking himself open again._ _

__He waits, holding his breath, until his dad opens his eyes and Stiles can see that they aren’t white anymore. And then when the Sheriff frowns and reaches for him, Stiles panics._ _

__“Don’t touch me,” he says, scrambling out the door and into the hall. “Don’t, I’ll hurt you again, don’t.”_ _

__“Stiles,” he calls. But Stiles keeps backing away, until he’s sliding down the stairs. “ _Stiles_.”_ _

__He runs out the front door and doesn’t look back._ _

__*_ _

__Stiles doesn’t know where he’s going and he didn’t bring his phone. And he’s still bleeding. All in all, it’s shaping up to be a pretty shitty night._ _

__But he did leave a pretty significant blood trail, so he’s pretty sure it won’t take long for a werewolf or two to find him._ _

__He wonders absently if the guard Derek left on his house got freaked out by the shadows and the blood._ _

__He’s at the park, on the same bench where things had gone stupidly wrong with Derek. He’s got the gauze from his (relatively) good arm wrapped around his bloody arm but he doesn’t know what else to do.  
He nearly killed his father. He pushed away everyone in his coven. His own familiar is staying away from him. He needs to be alone, where he can’t hurt anybody._ _

__But really, he wants Derek, and Scott, and everybody else._ _

__It’s not Derek who sits beside him, though. It’s Deucalion._ _

__“I can make you a deal, Stiles,” he says, quiet._ _

__Stiles stares at him and thinks about lashing out or running, but he knows there are other wolves just waiting for him to do that, and he’s not sure how far he’d get. He’s not even sure he should._ _

__“I’m not that interested in making deals,” Stiles says._ _

__“I saw what you did,” Deucalion tells him, and he sounds so sorrowful about it. “To your father.”_ _

__“It was an accident,” Stiles says, but he’s starting to sweat, the fever burning under his skin again._ _

__“How long until one of your accidents kills someone?” Deucalion asks. “Someone you love? Or someone innocent? A child?”_ _

__Stiles closes his eyes. “We’re going to fix it.”_ _

__“You and I both know it’s too late to fix it,” he says, sighing. “But I can teach you to control it, Stiles. I can teach you to use it.”_ _

__“I don’t want to use it.”_ _

__“I told you I’d offer you a deal, Stiles, and I told you I’d be back for you. I _will_ have you. It’s up to you to choose how – of your own free will, now, or after I’ve killed your pack. I could have, you know. At any time. I thought you’d realize that by now, all the warnings I’ve left for you, but you’ve been a coward. You could stop them from hurting, if you’re brave enough. You could save them all. Or you could stay here, a danger to yourself and to them, and watch them die, by your hand or mine. And maybe when I’m done with them, I’ll finish off your father.”_ _

__Stiles tries to think, but everything is hazy, quiet under the pounding of his heart. But that’s what he’s wanted, isn’t it? This whole time? He wanted to keep them safe. And the best way to do that is to leave them._ _

__“You promise you’ll leave them alone?” he asks faintly._ _

__“On my honour.”_ _

__Stiles nods slowly. He can do this. Deucalion can take him far, far away, where he won’t hurt anybody, and maybe he’s telling the truth, maybe he _can_ help Stiles control it. And if he can’t, and he has no honour, and this is all just bullshit? Worst case scenario, Stiles ends up dead, which he’s thinking might be the only way out of this. Or that Deucalion ends up dead, because at the end of the day, even if his magic is dark and corrupt and fucking creepy now, Stiles is still confident in the fact that he is a badass witch. And maybe it’ll take him down too, but he’s pretty sure he can blow Deucalion and his pack to pieces if he has to. “Okay,” he says._ _

__“Good boy,” Deucalion purrs, and Stiles can hear his smile. “Use your magic to cover your tracks, boy. We don’t want your wolf following you when we go.”_ _

__Stiles doesn’t even have to ask which wolf. He knows it would be Derek._ _

__But he gathers up the last hints of magic he’s got that hasn’t gone black and uses it to cover his trail from everyone in Beacon Hills._ _

__*_ _

__They’re in a truck driving east and Kali is bitching about Stiles and how he smells like a rotting corpse._ _

__Stiles doesn’t care. No one seems to care, really. Stiles is whispering healing incantations to close the wounds on his arm, coaxing his skin to mend and his magic to actually do what he needs it to, and with each tiny bit of magic, the fog in his mind eases a little bit._ _

__“I don’t understand why we wasted so much time in this town,” Kali snaps. “And for what? A kid who’s practically rotting from the inside?”_ _

__“Kali,” one of the twins finally groans. “Shut up.”_ _

__“It was supposed to be quick – swing through Beacon Hills, get that natural alpha in our pack, and then spend the rest of the summer in LA. That was the plan. Two days, you said.”_ _

__“LA?” Stiles asks, speaking for the first time, since they’d gotten in the truck. “Is that where we’re going?”_ _

__“No,” Deucalion says._ _

__And Kali loses her shit._ _

__Stiles has been wondering, absently, how a pack of alphas even work. Who’s the alpha of the alphas? Deucalion, obviously, but _why_? Without the natural pack roles, how does this thing even function?_ _

__Not well, he sees suddenly, as Kali wolfs out and tries to lunge at the twin who’s snarling at her. Stiles happens to be in the middle, and he ducks, narrowly avoiding her disgusting claws, and there’s chaos for a moment, before Deucalion is roaring for silence._ _

__The truck pulls over and there’s a sulky, tense silence that Stiles breaks, saying, “It’s like a bunch of children.”_ _

__“Everyone out,” Deucalion snaps, before adding, “Except the boy.”_ _

__The wolves hop out and Stiles glances around, realizing they’re on the eastern edge of the Preserve. Definitely out of Hale territory. He wonders how his dad is, if someone has gotten him help, if anyone knows he’s gone. He wonders if maybe he can come back, after he learns to control this._ _

__And then he hears Deucalion sending Ennis and Kali back to Beacon Hills to “take care of” Scott and his pack._ _

__He scrambles out of the truck. “You said you’d leave them alone,” he says. “You swore, on your honour.”_ _

__Deucalion sighs. “Your first mistake was believing I had any honour at all,” he says, pity in his voice. “I’ll ensure they won’t suffer, and in a matter of a day or two, you won’t remember them at all, so don’t fret about it.”_ _

__“I won’t _remember_?” Stiles says. _ _

__“You’re changing,” Deucalion explains. “Turning dark. Your magic is corrupting every part of you, and lucky for it, you’ve got this delicious, empty, dark _void_ just waiting to be filled.”_ _

__Stiles shakes his head quickly. “The nogitsune isn’t coming back,” he says. This is too different, he’d know if that’s what this is._ _

__“No,” Deucalion says. “But a darkness is taking its place. Don’t think for a moment it’s actually _you_ I wanted. You’re just a silly little boy. But the shadows, the darkness… the creature left over when you’ve been changed… that is a creature I can use.”_ _

__“You can’t hurt them,” he says, swallowing hard. “I won’t let you.”_ _

__Kali snorts and Ennis just rolls his eyes, and the rest of the alphas look bored. But Deucalion presses a hand to Stiles’ shoulder and says, “There’s nothing you can do, boy.”_ _

__But there’s always something Stiles can do. And even though his magic is different and slippery and cold, it’s still _his_._ _

__He wishes he knew how to warn them, he wishes he’d said goodbye to Derek before he’d left, he wishes he’d gotten help for his dad before he’d run. But none of it really matters at the end of the day._ _

__So he says, “You’ll have to go through me,” and the alphas laugh._ _

__Which just feeds the fever lurking beneath his skin. The shadows grow restless, angry, and so does Stiles, eyes sparking with darkness._ _

__Someone steps up behind him, to hold him or incapacitate him, Stiles doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter._ _

__He drops his head back and lashes out blindly with shadow magic, and the wolf behind him screams and shakes._ _

__They converge on him, while Deucalion watches, and he bats them away like flies, leaving black marks that move over their skin and dim their eyes, while Stiles grows angrier and angrier._ _

__The wind is picking up, leaves and twigs swirling around them, and still, the wolves keep coming, and Stiles doesn’t destroy them, not yet, because Deucalion needs to be closer. If Stiles is going down, he’s taking them _all_ with him._ _

__None of the other alphas can even touch him, and Stiles tips his head up and looks at Deucalion and says quietly, “On my honour, I won’t let you hurt them.”_ _

__And Deucalion loses his temper and shifts. He’s huge, twisted, ugly, a demon wolf, and he leaps at Stiles with no regard for his own safety._ _

__And Stiles shoves up and out with every bit of black magic inside him, and splits himself open as he does. Shadows pour out of his broken chest, slipping between broken bones, and howl was they twist up and out and through the wolves and tear them to tiny, bloody pieces._ _

__And then the wind is gone and the leaves fall with the bits of flesh and bone, and Stiles stands for a long, still moment, and he thinks maybe he’ll be okay._ _

__But his ribs are cracked open and his chest is shattered, and after that breathless moment, he falls quietly to the ground._ _

__There’s no pain, and all around him, the shadows start wriggling and sliding out of the broken bits of wolf, sliding towards him like water drops on a window. They crawl back inside his chest and around his heart, and there’s still no pain, so maybe it’s an alright way to die._ _

__The moon is shining and he’s alone, and the fever is broken for the first time in days, and Stiles is ready to die._ _

__But he misses Derek so fucking much. The broken bones don’t hurt and the torn skin doesn’t hurt, but his heart hurts with every beat._ _

__*_ _

__The owl cannot find his boy._ _

__The owl has fucking _lost_ him._ _

__The owl and the wolf and the pack, they’ve all lost him, and the owl can feel it._ _

__They’re running out of time._ _

__*_ _

__Dying takes longer than he thought it might. His lungs are bloody but they keep pulling in air, his heart is broken, but it keeps beating, and Stiles keeps staring up at the starry sky._ _

__And then there is a soft, tentative footstep in the trees alongside the road, and Stiles manages to slowly, slowly, turn his head._ _

__His eyes catch and hold the wide brown eyes of a pretty brown doe, standing stock still at the treeline, and Stiles breathes out, long and slow._ _

__He draws the runes in his own blood on the asphalt along the side of the highway, and then he breathes his magic into them, and then he asks, _please, please, please.__ _

__For a moment, he thinks the deer will say no, will run as fast and far as she can. But she hesitates and their eyes hold for another moment, and then he’s rushing into her mind and he can feel her racing heart and coiled muscles._ _

__And Stiles gives in and _runs.__ _

__*_ _

__Deer run differently than puppies, and Stiles feels more like he’s flying. He leaps over fallen trees and creeks, tears around corners in the deer path he’s following, and the night is a blur of muted colour, spiking scents, and his pounding heart._ _

__And then it stops. He’s at the treeline, he can see Derek’s house, can see the freshly painted door, clean of blood, can see the light pouring from every window. He breathes in and can smell predator on the air._ _

__The deer trembles, fur twitching, and she delicately steps into the clearing._ _

__Stiles can hear the crickets, the distant rush of water, the wind through the trees, and cars on the road far from here. He can hear soft footfalls of a rabbit in the undergrowth, a fox poking around an empty burrow. And if he listens very closely, he can hear Derek’s heart beating, too fast, inside his house._ _

__Stiles creeps closer._ _

__Derek’s voice comes through the open window. He’s on the phone, he’s furious, and Stiles doesn’t care what he’s saying or who he’s speaking to, just wants Derek to come closer, to come to the window, so Stiles can see him one more time before he dies._ _

__First there’s a shadow, and then there’s Derek, phone cradled to his ear, backlit by the kitchen light, though Stiles can still see the lines of his face clearly._ _

__And Derek goes very, very still._ _

__There’s a fluttering of feathers, wings beating, and then Steve drops from the sky, lands on the same windowsill that Stiles sat on as a songbird, and hoots softly._ _

__Derek is gone in a heartbeat and Stiles worries that’s it, he’s done, that’s the last he’ll see of Derek, and then the backdoor flies open and Derek is barefoot and standing on the back patio, hands up and very still, all coiled motion barely held in check._ _

__“Wait,” he says._ _

__The deer is frightened, she needs to run, she’s _standing in front of a wolf_ , she needs to run fast and far, but Stiles holds her still, even as she snorts and struggles for control._ _

__He wonders if Derek will hunt her, if he can’t even keep a single, innocent fucking deer safe, and then Derek says quietly, “Stiles, please.”_ _

__He takes a careful, measured step back._ _

__“Don’t – don’t run. Please.” Derek runs a hand through his hair and he looks desperate. “We can’t find you. Please, Stiles.” He steps closer, one trembling step, and Stiles jerks around and springs for the treeline, because wild instinct takes over._ _

__But Derek shouts his name, and his voice is wrecked, filled with desperation and fear and Stiles just can’t remember why he thought Derek’s feelings weren’t real, that they were just the result of that bond. The bond is gone now and Derek sounds just as concerned as he sounded before, if not more._ _

__And if Stiles is going to die – and he’s accepted the fact that he is – what’s the harm in maybe seeing Derek in person, just one more time? In touching him? In holding his hand?_ _

__Stiles is a selfish bastard, but if he has to die, he wants to do it holding Derek’s hand._ _

__So he hesitates and glances over his shoulder at Derek, just for a second, but it’s all the encouragement Derek needs. He’s a wolf seconds later, tearing across the clearing, and when Stiles dashes into the forest, he follows._ _

__Stiles is being hunted, the _deer_ is being hunted – it’s hard to sort out his terror from hers and it all runs together in one scream in his mind. They run, muscles and lungs burning, heart pounding, leaping over obstacles and through water and through it all, Derek stays on their trail, close enough to take them down if he really wanted, but never even so much as snapping his teeth._ _

__It takes all of his waning strength to coax the doe back to the highway where she found him, the abandoned patch of road that reeks of blood and bone and asphalt, where Stiles lays dying._ _

__He loses his grip on the deer just as she bursts from the treeline, and he lets go. She screams and darts back into the tree, but Derek crashes through the underbrush just behind her, and doesn’t even seem to notice when she ducks back in to run for safety._ _

__“Derek,” Stiles says, trying his best to reach for him._ _

__Derek steps through the mess of fur and skin and bone and falls to his knees at Stiles’ side. He takes in his condition with a glance, and Stiles knows it isn’t good, he’s cracked open, his chest is a mess of broken bone and black blood. Derek doesn’t even _try_ to put pressure on that wound._ _

__“Stiles,” he says, very gently. He takes his hand. “You’re okay.”_ _

__Stiles is starting to shutter, his teeth clicking together. He tries to smile. “H-hey,” he says._ _

__“You can heal this,” Derek tells him._ _

__Stiles closes his eyes. “Magic’s gone,” he says, voice cracking, fading at the end. “Doesn’t even hurt.”_ _

__“Hey.” Derek cups Stiles’ face in his hands. “Use me. Take from me. Fix this.”_ _

__Stiles opens his eyes and they’re stinging with tears. “I lost you,” he confesses in a whisper. “I broke the bond.”_ _

__“Idiot,” Derek says, still gentle. “Such an idiot.” And then he’s slashing open his wrist with his fangs, and his blood is raining down on Stiles, flashes of heat that snap like electricity._ _

__The shadows instantly swarm it, feeding on it, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a bit of strength, enough, and Stiles’ back arches a little as that heat runs through him and then gets tangled up deep inside his broken chest, right below his heart, another little knot in the place that had belonged to Derek before._ _

__“Oh,” he says._ _

__Derek presses his bloody hand to Stiles’ cheek. “Fix it, please, please.”_ _

__“You _love_ me,” Stiles says, eyes bright._ _

__“Yes,” Derek says, without hesitation. He’s gathering Stiles up now, so careful, cradling him against his chest. “Always.” Derek’s loading him into the passenger seat of Deucalion’s truck. “Stay awake,” he says. “Stay here with me.”_ _

__“Always,” Stiles echoes, rolling the word around in his mouth. Derek climbs into the driver’s seat, grabs Stiles’ hand with his bloodied one, to keep the energy flowing._ _

__“Say the words,” he says, turning the key in the ignition._ _

__“I love you,” Stiles says dutifully, faintly. He closes his eyes._ _

__“The _healing words_ ,” Derek snaps._ _

__Stiles starts to fall asleep, but he murmurs them obligingly, and little prickles of heat blossom around his broken edges and his broken heart, just enough to keep it beating._ _

__*  
“Hold him down.”_ _

__“No,” Stiles moans, but he’s barely conscious, batting at shadows that never come close enough to touch._ _

__“Shouldn’t we let him heal first?” It’s Scott, worried and frantic. “He’s – he’s barely alive, let him rest, and then heal, and then we can deal with the shadow magic.”_ _

__“I told you,” Deaton says, still calm, too calm. “It needs to be done before it becomes permanent, and the weaker he is, the more permanent it becomes. Derek, hold him.”_ _

__Derek’s at his shoulders, pressing him down, mouth by his ear. “You’re fine, everything’s fine,” he says, and Stiles relaxes, believing him._ _

__“His hands, Scott, Liam.”_ _

__And then he’s pinned, but he’s drifting away, falling asleep, and Derek keeps whispering to him, soothing things, and it’s nice, it makes him forget all about the shadows or his broken chest or any of it. And then the door flies open and his dad is there, and he’s not okay._ _

__“ _Stiles_?” he cries. “Is he alive? How can he be alive, he’s – he’s--”_ _

__His dad grabs at him, frantic hands, jarring at his chest, at the broken places, the open places, and Stiles twists against the hands holding him down._ _

__“Dad,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”_ _

__“Shh,” Derek says._ _

__“Stiles. Calm, calm,” says Deaton. Stiles cannot be fucking calm. He needs his dad, he needs –_ _

__“Stiles,” the sheriff says, his voice aching and terrified. “I’m here, okay, it’s all okay, we’re –”_ _

__“We’re good,” Derek says._ _

__“Ready?” Deaton asks._ _

__“Ready,” Stiles hums, because his father is holding his hand._ _

__And then there’s a strange, high pitched, grinding sound, and his dad’s grip spasms in his own and tightens, and Deaton says grimly, “He won’t be conscious long. Just hold him, keep him calm.”_ _

__And Derek keeps whispering, and then Deaton is sanding the marks off Stiles’ arms, scraping through skin and bone, and it feels like being flayed straight through._ _

__He screams and he screams until he chokes on shadows and blood and then there is nothing but darkness and Derek’s soft whispers._ _

__“You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re good, Stiles, you’re okay,” Derek breathes. And Stiles breathes with him._ _

__*_ _

__It’s a quick tickle of his magic beneath his skin that wakes him. It’s familiar, the way his magic felt before the shadows, a quicksilver flash that’s giddy and brightly burning, and Stiles opens his eyes._ _

__There is sun streaking across the roof, and he can hear birds singing through the window, and Steve is curled up against the side of his face, sleeping deeply, tucked up under his chin._ _

__Stiles closes his eyes and stretches in the sunspot he happens to be laying in, and everything is perfect – until something twinges in his chest and he frowns._ _

__“Ow,” he says._ _

__He turns his head because he’s not _in_ his room, he’s in Derek’s room, and for a moment, he can’t remember why that’s weird, and then he sees Derek standing in the doorway, his eyes wide. He’s barefoot and shirtless, his hair is a mess, he looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks._ _

__“What’re you doing over there?” Stiles asks, voice gravelly._ _

__“I wasn’t sure you’d want me closer,” Derek confesses. He takes a step into the room. “And I was making you waffles.”_ _

__Stiles blinks slowly, sleepily, at him, pondering his words for a moment, and then slowly, the events of the past few weeks come trickling back, and he sits up with a gasp, tearing at the shirt he’s wearing._ _

__Steve protests in his sleep, a weak hoot, but just curls up against his hip, not even waking._ _

__“Hey, hey,” Derek says, sitting beside him and taking both of his hands. “You’re okay. Bandaged, but healing, and – and mostly back together. Deaton says when your magic has a chance to recover further, you’ll probably be able to heal yourself the rest of the way.”_ _

__Stiles turns his wrists over in Derek’s hands and stares at the undersides of his arms, which are marked with brutal, rough scarring. But they’re not bleeding anymore, not red or black._ _

__Derek brushes over the scars with both thumbs and it feels strange over the scar tissue, and Stiles almost pulls away, shy, because it’s ugly, but all he feels from Derek is a rush of the deepest relief, and he realizes the room has brightened up since Derek stepped into it._ _

__He slowly lifts his head and says, “I can feel you again.”_ _

__Derek drops his hands, looking away. “Oh,” he says._ _

__“Is that – that’s not okay?”_ _

__“I didn’t realize you’d stopped, not until I gave you my blood again. If you don’t want it – if you don’t want anything, with me, that’s okay. Just tell me, and –”_ _

__Stiles grabs his hands. “Nothing really made sense, in my head, when those runes were bleeding,” he confesses quietly. “But I don’t understand how I could get confused about how you really feel when I can feel it too. The room brightens up when you look at me.”_ _

__Derek shrugs, still staring at his hands, and Stiles’ curled around them. “It’s been like that for a while,” he confesses. The tips of his ears are turning pink._ _

__“How long a while?”_ _

__“Since before it was legal,” he says. “That’s all you get to know.”_ _

__Stiles laughs and his chest twinges again, but it’s nothing compared to the pain of ripping out his bond to Derek._ _

__“Deaton says no more trying to brand runes onto yourself, especially if you’re not even paying enough attention to get them right,” Derek tells him._ _

__“I was kinda rushed,” Stiles admits. “I was trying to prove a point.”_ _

__“Well…” Derek hesitates. “You can take care of yourself. And I can take care of myself too.” He scowls a little, cheeks pink now too. “But maybe we can…” He shrugs miserable._ _

__“Take care of each other?” Stiles asks, to put him out of his misery. He’s grinning so much, his cheeks hurt. Derek glances up at him and Stiles pretends to think about it for a moment, before saying, “As long as you admit that I’m a badass witch.”_ _

__“You are,” Derek says instantly. “Obviously.”_ _

__And then he kisses Stiles like he doesn’t even care that Stiles just woke up after so long without even brushing his teeth, and the room brightens up again, almost blinding._ _

__*_ _

__The owl wishes many things – that he’d never given in and bonded with this stupid boy. That he had done more to watch over this boy and not let him poison his own magic. That he’d been with the boy when he’d been taken, so maybe he’d have been able to help him get home again._ _

__But mostly he wishes that the boy and his wolf would stop making out long enough to remember to feed him._ _

__Or even open a window._ _

__There had to be some juicy mice around, or songbirds, or hell, even a bug or two._ _

__It’s hard being bonded to a magical boy who keeps breaking his bonds and nearly dying and nearly dragging the owl down with him. He needs protein._ _

__But no. The boy seems perfectly content rolling around in bed with the wolf, kissing and biting and all sorts of things._ _

__The owl is going to starve at this rate._ _

__And he’s going to complain, really, he is, but then the pants start coming off willy-nilly, and there are some things that owls are just not meant to see, not even when bonded to teenaged witches._ _

__And when their teenaged witch finally convinces his werewolf boyfriend that they’ve finally waited long enough and right now is a “fucking awesome, I swear” time to have sex – that is one of those things the owl does not need to see. Or hear. Or acknowledge._ _

__Luckily, the wolf taught him how to open the fridge and use the microwave a few weeks ago, and he’s pretty sure he can figure out how to turn the television on, so he supposes, well…_ _

__It isn’t all bad._ _

__The End_ _


End file.
